STRANDED

 

There's a boat coming

And I can see I'll miss it again

One more time

I am a passenger with no ticket or passport

One more time

I must stay and promote the trip

One more time

I am used invisibly

One more time

I'm still here

I guess I must like the island

Invisible Elba

 

If the Tao were true in my heart

Perhaps I wouldn't feel this way

Or does a lion stay a lion

And an eagle stay an eagle

If these are truly their paths?

Do I seem more like a housecat

More like a sparrow

Or is there a plague upon the vision

Of those we've charged to identify

Those with the keys to my cage

Those with eyes of stone.

 

I thought it was a steamer;

It's a tugboat.

This island is sinking

And everyone wants off.

 

Fuck you, Captain Sir;

Take your boat and sail.

Get away from here

Before they kill you all

Before panic and anger

Turns your ship to debris,

And yourself, your crew, your passengers

To victims.

I for one am sick of looking at you

And I won't fight for space on deck

And I won't lift a finger to help you

If, in their madness,

The angry masses tear you all to shreds.

 

Sail now

Leave me as you've left me every time before

With more knowledge

More reasons to live

Awaiting the imminent wave of death

With more gold than I can carry

In a place where gold is worthless

Except in the ideals of jealous fools.

 

I will watch

The panic dances of the selfish

 

A class to whom I suppose I belong

And am no better than.

 

We shall live and die together

A hundred thousand miles from anywhere

 

And in the end

We shall all be invisible

 

I'm sure the piles of corpses

At Dachau and Buchenwald and Treblinka

Looked very small from space.

 

GS 5/17/90

 

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